On Wednesday two dozen alpha males, leading executives and chiefs from some of the country's most senior public institutions, stepped forward pledging more action to advance women in their organisations.

Three years ago, aged 39, Pip Marlow reached the top of the business ladder, becoming chief executive of one of the country's leading corporations. Yet even that position was not enough to shield her from patronising assumptions by some men about how gender might affect her ability to do the job.

The Microsoft Australia boss still runs into occasional bias, "conscious and unconscious", she said this week.

For many of us there has been a personal conversion.

"Just the other day I had somebody [a businessman] comment to me that it must be difficult for me as a female to make a 7.30 morning meeting."

She shot back "no more challenging than it is for my husband".

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Marlow, who juggles a busy schedule around the needs of daughters aged nine and 12, says one of her core aims as chief executive is to "support a cultural norm where unconscious bias does not exist, where there is flexibility in the workplace so that people of all backgrounds can do their best work".

Coming from Marlow – who has to walk the walk, as well as talk the talk – the rhetoric seems genuine. But elsewhere in corporate Australia, noble sentiment has too often atrophied into token, or no, action. This week there were signs that the tide might be turning. On Wednesday two dozen alpha males, leading executives and chiefs from some of the country's most senior public institutions, stepped forward pledging more action to advance women in their organisations.

Turning out in force at a forum in Sydney, the group launched a 12-point action plan to swell the numbers of women in their senior ranks and to put pressure on the companies they deal with to do the same. Too often, they said in a joint statement, "we have found that women's experiences and their advancement are . . . dependent on whether they are lucky enough to have a manager or sponsor who is supportive and inclusive. We need to end the leadership lottery."

Smith said he had never seen himself as a member of any self-help group but that "this is kind of what the Male Champions of Change has been for us – minus the group hugs". He declared he had had an "epiphany" after signing up to Broderick's initiative, realising men with a track record of hiring and advancing women were "quite rare" and should be "celebrated".

Putting their heads together, the group has produced a 12-point action list which includes some seriously practical suggestions, such as the "plus one" initiative.

Smith explained this meant "managers across our organisations add at least one woman to their teams as roles arise; and if not, we'll be asking 'why not' ".

Other measures include providing incentives for major suppliers to redress gender imbalance in their own ranks; personal mentoring or sponsorship of talented women; making sure women get the "hot jobs" inside organisations; normalising flexible hours; getting managers and recruitment agencies to cast their nets more broadly – rather than just "like hiring like" – and setting and implementing internal goals for better gender balance.

It was also crucial, the group said, to ensure part-time workers were not excluded from executive teams: "We want to help debunk the myth that flexible working impedes productivity and signals low career aspirations."

Most important of all, the group said, was "personal belief" in the task. "For many of us there has been a personal conversion," they said. "We have moved from an intellectual understanding to full engagement of the heart and mind."

Whether all this amounts to a lasting shift in the business zeitgeist remains to be seen. Broderick is hopeful.

"What was historic about this week's event was that it was many more men in that room than women," she says of the several-hundred strong audience. "It was about action not rhetoric – and recognising that if we want change, powerful men have to take the message about gender equality to other men."

There were green shoots from another quarter as well. The Business Council of Australia – an invitation-only club of the country's leading chief executives – came to the party this week with its prescriptions for increasing female representation in the upper echelons of the workplace.

Deputy director Maria Tarrant says the aim is to get many more women into the "pipeline" leading to the "C-suite" – shorthand for roles which tend to have "chief" in their title.

Most recommendations are drawn from a report done for the business council by former James Hardie chairman Meredith Hellicar, which makes compelling reading for women who have struggled to pinpoint what it is that stands in the way of their advancement.

Hellicar highlights research showing that when CVs are identical, "the male is preferred twice as often as the female".

And there are telling insights into the different ways in which men and women promote their careers. Women in performance reviews tend to "underrate or realistically rate themselves and men to overrate themselves, particularly when criteria are ambiguous" she writes. To counter this, Hellicar suggests companies "avoid the practice of reviewees presenting their self-assessed scores".

Pip Marlow's experience bears out such theories. "When women are applying for jobs, they seem to feel the need to be closer to 95 per cent ready . . . while with the men [it's OK] to be 75 per cent there. It's a great attribute . . . but the challenge is [equitable outcomes] for the women," she says.

While the business council has set its members the goal of having women occupy 50 per cent of senior jobs in a decade's time, sceptics highlight the fact that sectors like resources will find that hard to achieve until more women graduate from courses such as engineering.

Broderick dismisses this as an excuse. "Smart organisations will be devising strategies to impact that," she says, pointing to some companies which are already reaching out to girls in schools.